Miscellaneous

Sports Channels and A La Carte Cable Pricing

by on January 26, 2013 · 4 comments

Matt Yglesias today responded with a post of his own to a NYT article about sports channels and cable pricing by Brian Stelter that Yglesias believed had “bad analysis.” I’m here to defend Stelter a little bit because I think Yglesias was too harsh and that Yglesias erred in his own post about the nature of cable bundling. Yglesias’ posts on cable bundling are good, and especially valuable because his Slate and ThinkProgress audiences are not the most receptive to economic justifications for perceived unfair corporate pricing schemes. In part due to him I suspect, you rarely hear econ and business bloggers calling for a la carte pricing of cable channels.

And Yglesias is certainly right that you can’t really complain about the price of your cable package, which includes the few channels you watch plus the sports channels you don’t watch, because you obviously value the channels more than the price you pay per month, even if the sports are a “waste.” He falters when he says

So since those channels are worth $60 to you, even if unbundling happens your cable provider is going to find a way to charge you approximately $60 for them. Because at the end of the day, you’re paying your cable provider for access to the channels you do watch—not for access to the channels you don’t watch. The channels you don’t watch are just there. If the channels you do watch are worth $60 to you, then $60 is what you’ll pay for them.

Continue reading →

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Larry Downes on Privacy – Capitol Hill January 23rd

by on January 22, 2013 · 0 comments

Attendees at the State of the ‘Net conference will be thrilled to know that Larry Downes will be making an encore performance Wednesday afternoon, January 23rd, in the Rayburn House Office Building. The noontime briefing is entitled “A Rational Response to the Privacy ‘Crisis’.” It’s appropriately named because he’ll be discussing ideas from his recent Cato policy analysis: “A Rational Response to the Privacy ‘Crisis’.”

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Wendell Wallach on robot ethics

by on December 18, 2012 · 0 comments

Wendell Wallach, lecturer at the Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics at Yale University, co-author of “Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong,” and contributor to the new book, “Robot Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics,” discusses robot morality.

Though many of those interested in the ethical implications of artificial intelligence focus largely on the ethical implications of humanoid robots in the (potentially distant) future, Wallach’s studies look at moral decisions made by the technology we have now.

According to Wallach, contemporary robotic hardware and software bots routinely make decisions based upon criteria that might be differently weighted if decided by a human actor working on a case-by-case basis. The sensitivity these computers have to human factors is a vital to ensuring they make ethically sound decisions.

In order to build a more ethically robust AI, Wallach and his peers work with those in the field to increase the sensitivity displayed by the machines making the routine calculations that affect our daily lives.

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State Film Industry Incentives: A Growing Cronyism Fiasco

by on December 5, 2012 · 2 comments

Someone should consider making a movie about wasteful state-based film industy subsidies. It has become quite a cronyist fiasco in a very short period of time.

Some background: State and local tax incentives for movie production have expanded rapidly over the past decade. These inducements include tax credits, sales tax exemptions, cash rebates, direct grants, and tax or fee reductions for lodging or locational shooting. In 2002, only five states offered such inducements for movie production. By the end of 2009, forty-five states had some sort of incentives in place to lure film producers.

In 2010, the film industry received an estimated $1.5 billion in financial commitments from these programs. Unsurprisingly, these incentives have proven very popular with movie studios. Of the nine motion pictures that were nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards in 2012, five had received taxpayer-funded rebates, tax credits, and subsidies by state governments. “The Help” received a Mississippi spending rebate of $3,547,780 and “The Tree of Life” received $434,253 from Texas. In February 2012, Best Picture-nominee “Moneyball” received as much as $5.8 million from the state of California. It had grossed over $75 million at the box office. More recently, the biopic “Lincoln” received roughly $3.5 million in tax incentives from the Virginia Film Office.

Many state and local governments offer these inducements in the hope of attracting new jobs and investment; other simply seek to bill themselves as “the new Hollywood.” As William Luther of the Tax Foundation notes, “From politicians’ point of view, bringing Hollywood to town is the best of all possible photo opportunities—not just a ribbon-cutting to announce new job creation but a ribbon-cutting with a movie or TV star.” But it seems as if the glamor and prestige associated with films and celebrities have trumped sound economics since there is no evidence these tax incentives help state or local economies. Continue reading →

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So You Want to Be an Internet Policy Analyst?

by on December 3, 2012 · 24 comments

[Updated 7/10/14: See new addendum at bottom. Updated 4/28/13: Included links to several things + started list of additional resources at end.]

Each year I am contacted by dozens of people who are looking to break into the field of information technology policy as a think tank analyst, a research fellow at an academic institution, or even as an activist. Some of the people who contact me I already know; most of them I don’t. Some are free-marketeers, but a surprising number of them are independent analysts or even activist-minded Lefties. Some of them are students; others are current professionals looking to change fields (usually because they are stuck in boring job that doesn’t let them channel their intellectual energies in a positive way). Some are lawyers; others are economists, and a growing number are computer science or engineering grads. In sum, it’s a crazy assortment of inquiries I get from people, unified only by their shared desire to move into this exciting field of public policy.

I always do my best to answer their emails, calls, and requests for meetings. Unfortunately, there’s only so much time in the day and I am sometimes not able to get back to all of them. I always feel bad about that, so, this essay is an effort to gather my thoughts and advice and put it all one place so that I will at least have something to send these folks. Perhaps I’ll try to update it over time.

#1) Understand that Specialization Matters

I don’t want to bury the lede here, so let me start with the most important piece of advice I share with everyone who contacts me: specialization matters. When I got started in the sleepy field of information technology policy back in 1991, it was possible to be a jack-of-all-trades. There were only a few issues that really mattered, and most of them were tied up with traditional communications and media policy. If you knew a little something about telephony, universal service subsidies, spectrum policy, and broadcast regulation, then you could be an analyst in this field. There were only a handful of people in the think tank world back then who even cared about such issues. Continue reading →

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Morozov’s Algorithmic Auditing Proposal: A Few Questions

by on November 19, 2012 · 3 comments

In a New York Times op-ed this weekend entitled “You Can’t Say That on the Internet,” Evgeny Morozov, author of The Net Delusion, worries that Silicon Valley is imposing a “deeply conservative” “new prudishness” on modern society. The cause, he says, are “dour, one-dimensional algorithms, the mathematical constructs that automatically determine the limits of what is culturally acceptable.” He proposes that some form of external algorithmic auditing be undertaken to counter this supposed problem. Here’s how he puts it in the conclusion of his essay:

Quaint prudishness, excessive enforcement of copyright, unneeded damage to our reputations: algorithmic gatekeeping is exacting a high toll on our public life. Instead of treating algorithms as a natural, objective reflection of reality, we must take them apart and closely examine each line of code.

Can we do it without hurting Silicon Valley’s business model? The world of finance, facing a similar problem, offers a clue. After several disasters caused by algorithmic trading earlier this year, authorities in Hong Kong and Australia drafted proposals to establish regular independent audits of the design, development and modifications of computer systems used in such trades. Why couldn’t auditors do the same to Google?

Silicon Valley wouldn’t have to disclose its proprietary algorithms, only share them with the auditors. A drastic measure? Perhaps. But it’s one that is proportional to the growing clout technology companies have in reshaping not only our economy but also our culture.

It should be noted that in a Slate essay this past January, Morozov had also proposed that steps be taken to root out lies, deceptions, and conspiracy theories on the Internet.  Morozov was particularly worried about “denialists of global warming or benefits of vaccination,” but he also wondered how we might deal with 9/11 conspiracy theorists, the anti-Darwinian intelligent design movement, and those that refuse to accept the link between HIV and AIDS.

To deal with that supposed problem, he recommended that Google “come up with a database of disputed claims” or “exercise a heavier curatorial control in presenting search results,” to weed out such things. He suggested that the other option “is to nudge search engines to take more responsibility for their index and exercise a heavier curatorial control in presenting search results for issues” that someone (he never says who) determines to be conspiratorial or anti-scientific in nature.

Taken together, these essays can be viewed as a preliminary sketch of what could become a comprehensive information control apparatus instituted at the code layer of the Internet. Continue reading →

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LPFM Will Likely Fail Again, Unfortunately

by on November 1, 2012 · 122 comments

“All this top-40s music sounds the same.”  I think we’ve all heard this sentiment.  The nature of regional radio broadcasting almost requires a regression to the mean in musical tastes.  A radio station cannot be all things to all people.  I suspect most people will be surprised to learn that some of the most innovative radio broadcasts are taking place at hundreds of stations across the country—and only few people can listen to them.  These stations, known as low power FM (LPFM), carry niche programming like independent folk rock music, fishing shows, political news, reggae, blues, and religious programming.  (And one station in Sitka, Alaska consists entirely of a live feed of whale sounds.) Continue reading →

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America’s Internet Transformation Demands an All-IP Future

by on October 31, 2012 · 0 comments

If the FCC stops moving forward on Internet transformation, the universal service and intercarrier compensation reform order will become a death warrant for telephone companies.

CLIP hosted an event earlier this month to discuss Internet transformation. What is Internet transformation? In a recent op-ed, FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai noted that it “is really two different things—a technology revolution and a regulatory transition.”

The technology revolution began with the commercialization of the Internet, which enables the delivery of any communications service over any network capable of handling Internet Protocol (IP). According to the National Broadband Plan, the “Internet is transforming the landscape of America more rapidly and more pervasively than earlier infrastructure networks.” In little more than a decade, the Internet destroyed the monopoly structure of the old communications industry from within and replaced it with intermodal competition. Continue reading →

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Worst. Sentence. Ever.

by on October 28, 2012 · 0 comments

Here it is:

In an era where individuals take to social networks to not only connect with one another, but also share experiences, the “statusphere” as I call it, is transforming a media ecosystem into a very personal EGOsystem.

Let’s start with the awkward phrasings.

An “era” is a time-period, so you’d modify it with “when” not “where.” And why not simply begin the sentence with “When”? Those four letters could have communicated the same thing as the first four words.

Then there’s the tongue-twisting staccato of putting a prepositional phrase that starts with “to” in series with an infinitive. And not just any infinitive: a split infinitive. (I don’t think it’s always wrong to split an infinitive, but there was no need to do so here.)

The parallel between “connect” and “share” should be signaled by saying “to share” rather than letting “share” dangle eight words from the “to” signal.

The failure to set off “as I call it” with commas at both ends makes it unclear whether the author is coining this term in the first instance or distinguishing his version of the term from someone else’s.

And shifting to substance: that term—“statusphere.” Really? No.

The “-sphere” or “-osphere” suffix is a played-out meme generator.

But that is not the only meme plopped in our laps. We also have the unpunny meme, “EGOsystem.”

Oh, I get it. People are too self-oriented on social networks. (The effort is evidently to make an obvious notion seem ready for the cover of Wired circa 1995.)

My point? I haven’t got one, other than: “If you write, learn to write.” And perhaps, “Let your original ideas shine through as clear expression rather than dressing old ideas in gaudy, new words.”

This has been my review of the second sentence in a piece called “The Erosion of Privacy and the Rise of Publicness…and why it’s a good thing” (pre-existing overdone meme, capitalization fail, and indeterminate reference all in original).

Now I’ll go see if I can get through the next sentence.

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Why Doesn’t Everyone Go Prepaid?

by on October 23, 2012 · 2 comments

There’s been a resurgence in interest in non-contract (prepaid) phone plans and MVNOs in tech reporting lately, which makes sense given recent market dynamics.  Prepaid subscriptions number over 100 million, are now 25% of the mobile subscriber market, and Ars Technica recently reported that post-paid subscriptions declined for the first time ever in mid-2012.  Prepaid is definitely attracting people other than the usual lower-income folks, students, and the tech-savvy, who have the patience (or need) to navigate the hurdles prepaid sometimes presents.  The prepaid market has come a long way since Adam wrote about Straight Talk three years ago, and as one of the newest customers of Straight Talk—an MVNO that leases their networks from the Big Four carriers—I’d like to weigh in on these prepaid market challengers.

This post is mostly inspired by a conversation I had with a telecom expert at a recent event.  I asked her if she thought Americans would, like the Europeans have, shift towards prepaid in the next few years.  I was optimistic but she didn’t think Americans would go to a prepaid model anytime soon.  (She did say, however, that some carriers would prefer we switch to a prepaid model.)  So why hasn’t the US market shifted towards prepaid plans like much of the world?  I suspect if we polled economists, carriers, and tech writers, most would agree that prepaid is a better model.  It’s almost always cheaper to use a prepaid plan and you can avoid a two-year contract.  So why hasn’t there been even more adoption of prepaid?  I offer a few possibilities from the demand side (there are likely supply-side issues too, but let’s save that for another day). Continue reading →

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